I have misgivings on the "stand your ground" laws, as I understand them. The problem I see is that conceivably someone could initiate a fist fight (assault someone else), find themselves on the loosing side and at real risk of great bodily arm, and then pull a gun a shoot the person they attacked. If I'm not mistaken, the only thing that matters is whether one is at risk of material injury or death. If this is true, it is easy to manipulate and it makes it hard for unarmed people to defend themselves: they can only fight to a draw, they cannot risk having a significant advantage. This is not how a fight is terminated safely.

Snowden didn't endanger Americans - terrorists endanger Americans. The government's role is not to protect certain rights at the expense of others, it is to protect all rights according to an objective standard, ideally defined in the law. I'm not sure Snowden is a hero, but he's closer to being one than to being a traitor.

The problem with nutrition is that we have no way of really testing long term effects of things. Personally, I am convinced that both *what* and *how much* we eat will have an impact on our quality of life and/or lifespan. The more I read and learn about the subject, the clearer it is that our knowledge is fuzzy. The field is also as polluted with politics as is climatology.

I think that regulation is largely to blame for the blandness. All the cars have to fit such narrow standards that they end up looking very similar. My dad used to have a vintage Mercedes Benz (early 50's 220). It was lovely, but you had to constantly polish the chromes and treat the leather. That was a pain in the neck. But then again, that was the luxury side of things. On the other side of the spectrum you had things like the original VV beetle and the French 2CV - horrible cars.